Letter to the Editor: Wake Up America, Water and Oil is Underpriced!

I wrote this short note to the editors of about ten major newspapers across the country:

It is amazing how spoiled Americans have become. We pay five dollars for a gallon of gas and everyone freaks out. Europeans have been paying three to four times that much for years, which has encouraged more fuel efficient vehicles, and also smaller vehicles.

Market forces are at work here, people. Tapping into fuel reserves, off-shore drilling, these short-term fixes miss the point. Oil is a scarce resource and any scarce resource that is in huge demand, will constantly go up in price. Americans have been spoiled and treat these precious resources as God-given rights. It is about time that we pay more realistic market prices for our two most important resources - energy and water.

Water is the next oil. We will see price increases in the future as the cost of providing ready, clean supplies of water goes up. Currently, water is cheaper in the desert of Las Vegas than in snowy Boston; isn't something clearly wrong with this picture?

You can - and should - write a short note to the editor's of newspapers about how you feel about environmental issues. Visit Al Gore's non-profit initiative - wecansolveit.org - for a great resource for the concerned individual. There are many ways you can get involved, under the "Take Action" section of the website. Here is a link to help you write a short note to some editor's right away: http://www.wecansolveit.org/page/speakout/augustchallenge.